Full 90: World Cup Update

We are 89 days out from the World Cup in Brazil. Here is an update on events surrounding the most coveted soccer tournament:

2/3 of World Cup tickets sold

On Wednesday FIFA opened its most recent phase of ticket sales resulting in more than two-thirds of the World Cup matches being sold out. It took less than an hour for high-profiled matches including all Brazil matches, quarterfinals, and second round matches to be sold. This phase is based on first-come, first-serve basis. The only matches to yet to offer tickets in this phase are the top priority matches including the opener in Sao Paulo, the final in Rio de Janeiro, and the two semifinals matches. Within the first five hours a total of 203,330 tickets were so thus far out of the 345,000 total available in this phase which closes on April 1^st. The countries with the most ticket requests were Brazil (143,085), United States (16,059), Australia (5,357), Colombia (4,574) and Argentina (3,800). In total, of the 3.3 million World Cup tickets available for Brazil, 2.2 million have been purchased.

Rio declares World Cup a public holiday

Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil and host city of the World Cup final, has authorized three public holidays throughout the month-long tournament to make sure high-density traffic does not inhibit the execution of the tournament. The three designated holiday dates are as follows: July 4^th quarterfinal at Maracana stadium, June 18 when Spain takes on Chile, and June 25^th when Ecuador plays France. These dates were selected as holidays because of the 7 games to be played in Rio, these three are the only matches that will take place mid-week. The mayor of Rio de Janeiro solidified the importance of this tournament through his remarks claiming that he did not wish to bring “inconvenience to the population”. The questions remains at large, with already eight national public holidays, 30 state holidays, and resultantly projected $2.3 billion in industry losses- should Rio realistically shut down for 3 additional dates?  

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